As soon as the fourth colonist token is unlocked, further birthrate tokens are placed in the quarters subject to normal rules, but they will not be used in any way. We do not want to limit the growth of the colony, since there may be an expansion or new scenarios that might use the extra birthrate tokens.

As for now you may use the home rule that says that after unlocking the fourth colonist token you do not have to place any more birthrate tokens in the quarters.

Well if you have the birth tech you can get 1 birth token from it, not worry to remove all tokens from the quarters every cycle and still get a 4th colonist token at the start of the 4th cycle, can't you?

There is something concerning "superfluous" birth rate tokens I have been wondering about quite some time:

Unless I am missing some tiny rule you cannot use 3 birth rate tokens to flip a skull-side colonist token to the normal side (after unlocking the fourth colonist token, that is). Thematically, the new-born colonists could replace those that died of suffocation (or whatever killd them off). But it seems you can't do that.

@REDIMP: Has such a rule been tried and dismissed while developing the game?

What i read : such rule was true in the beginning, but the rules change and now it's impossible, i don't know why, it's thematic and only for the 5th round, so why this rule was dismissed ? I don't know. Maybe i'm going to try to play with it.

What i read : such rule was true in the beginning, but the rules change and now it's impossible, i don't know why, it's thematic and only for the 5th round, so why this rule was dismissed ? I don't know. Maybe i'm going to try to play with it.

Had one of those shower thoughts yesterday: Implementing such a mechanic would break the urge to satisfy the needs of your colonists. You could calculate when dead colonists will be "revived" and thus ignore the production of food, oxygen and medicine in favor of other actions for the round preceding that event. The dead colonists would be replaced anyway, which is sort of gamey and would break the theme as well as the tight resource management.